Oilmeal exports fall by 37%

TNNApr 11, 2003, 05.10am IST

The drought in the kharif (April-02 to March 03) has also taken toll on country's oilmeal exports. In tune with oilseeds production which fell steeply during the period, oilmeal exports in the year slumped to 19 lakh tonnes, down by 37% over the previous year's exports of 30 lakh tonnes.

As soyameal accounts for over 70% of total oilmeal exports of the country, any setback in soyabean production of the country adversely affects the prospect of its oilmeals exports. This had happened in '02-03.

In the year, total oilmeals exports suffered badly because soyameal exports, on a lower production of soyabean, fell 47% to 13 lakh tonnes. In the year, adverse climatic conditions brought down soyabean crop by 27% to 42.7 lakh tonnes.

The resultant crunch in the soyameal availability hiked its prices in the domestic market and subsequently made its export incompetitive in comparison to its main rival, China.

As lower availability of soyabean put pressure on the crushing margin, soyameal extractors kept on increasing its prices. In August-September '02, it even went up to Rs 15,000 per tonne.

Though it subsequently declined to around Rs 9,500 per tonne in January-March '03, still it continued to rule higher by $20-30 per tonne in its major markets in Far East and South-east Asia.

This had paved the way for China to increase its marketshare in those countries. Taking advantage of India's incompetitive soyameal prices, China exported additional one million tonnes to markets in the Far East, an official of Solvent Extractors' Association said.

Higher arrivals from Brazil and Argentina too proved as deterrent to increase soyameal exports to Europe and Latin America. Any way, India could not increase soyameal's exports above 13-14 lakh tonnes due to growing consumption in the domestic market, which increased by 2 lakh tonnes to 15 lakh tonnes in the year, the official added.

Groundnut meal too suffered a huge setback. Due to very poor crop of groundnut, particularly in Saurashtra region, its exports fell to a mere 15,225 tonnes compared to one lakh tonnes in the previous year.

However, one redeeming feature of the entire exercise in oilmeals' exports was a substantial improvement in exports of rapeseed meal. In the year, its exports moved up 46% to 4.5 lakh tonnes.

Though rape/mustard seeds crop declined by 11.7% to 41.5 lakh tonnes, shortage of production here led to an upswing in rapeseed meal exports as rapeseed oil firmed on lower crop, higher oil prices led to higher crushing and hence higher extraction of rapeseed cake.

As it remained cheaper than soyameal, some Asian countries increased its buying to re-mix their feed formulation. Poor crop of rapeseed in China had also encouraged Korea, Taiwan and Japan to buy larger quantity from India.

While castor meal exports declined marginally by 5% to 92,445 tonnes. It had been mainly exported to Taiwan and Korea where it was used as organic fertiliser.